


to tell the tale

by cuneifire



Category: And I Darken Series - Kiersten White
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen, Heartbreak, Love, M/M, theyre stuck on a boat in the middle of the sea having heartfelt discussions yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuneifire/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: “People should be careful with which hearts they break.”In which Nazira tells Cyprian about Radu and Mehmed.





	to tell the tale

**Author's Note:**

> why am I always in tiny fandoms having to decide how to tag character's names goddammit im not that smart.  
> anyways I have a long love/hate relationship with this series but bright we burn was pretty sweet and fixed a lot of my issues with it so here's this thing.

His eyes fall to her, curiously grey with the lapping of the waves at the boat. It’s surprisingly calm now, sun bright and beautifully hanging in the sky above their heads. Valentin sleeps.

“Is that… everything you wanted to tell me?” He says, after a pause. He has been listening to Nazira tell him- well, everything, with patience, taking in every word as if he’d expected it.

And she has told him everything. He deserves to hear such- he is, in spite of it all, her and Radu’s friend.

He leans back in the boat, hand empty over where their meager supplies of food used to be. They’ll have to solve that problem soon, hopefully, but for now she still has to tell him one thing.

She pauses, phrasing her words. “No, it’s not.”

He straightens, eyes curious. His eyes are nice, in that sort of way. A pretty shade of grey. She can understand why Radu would like him.

Cyprian is many things. Kind, perhaps to a point where some would consider it a weakness. Intelligent, although not cunning. Forgiving, as he’d taken everything she told him with odd ease, although sometime his fists would clench and he’d look down for a second before meeting her eyes and saying ‘I’m sorry that occurred.’

Completely unalike to the person Radu had fallen for before, but somehow, that made it for the better.

Nazira had decided, quite a long time ago, that she liked Cyprian. And he deserved the truth. All of it.

So she told him.

“Radu- his reason for coming- of a sort- was because he wanted to impress Mehmed.” She pauses. “-He was in love with him.”

Cyprian tilts his head at her. He doesn’t look too surprised, nor shocked, simply. Curious. That was the word to describe him. Interested, in Radu especially, but not possessive. More, simply as if there were things in life you could not control, and love was one of them.

She enjoyed that about him. It juxtaposed significantly to Radu, who worried day and night over where his love and loyalties lay.

Then, “Was?”

She bites on her lips lightly, thinking. “I cannot tell you Radu’s true feelings, I have a sense that oftentimes he does not know them himself, in fact.” She smiled with fondness at the thought of her friend, although it was creased with worry for him.

“All I can tell you is that Mehmed knows of his feelings, and has used them to his advantage. And I think that Radu does not find that very kind of him.”

Cyprian stares, gaze far off behind her, to the ocean. Perhaps his gaze is still wandering back to Constantinople.

“People should be careful with which hearts they break.” is all he says, a simple statement.

She thinks she understands. Treading carefully, she replies, “It is a terrible thing to be taken for granted.”

“To be betrayed, in that way.” Cyprian says, lightly, and he throat closes up. She had hoped- perhaps a bit foolishly- that he would not hold them too many resentments. But here he was, saying all this, and perhaps rightfully so-

“-But it would be much worse to never be forgiven.” He says kindly, sun’s light gleaning in his grey eyes as his gaze meet hers, and. She understands now.

“Yes.” She replies, softly, and feels herself smiling tentatively.

He smiles back.

Cyprian was nothing like the other people Radu had loved in his life. Not Lada, with her nail biting and ruthless ambition, and especially not Mehmed, with his belief in any means for the chosen end.

No, Cyprian was not that.

But, she thinks slowly as they push along the waves, that is for the better.

Cyprian forgives him.

And with luck, perhaps one day Radu will realise he is capable of being forgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you guys enjoyed! feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
